:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tronc/FZFZTFMV6NHMJCQOCNHBU3T2CY.jpg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tronc/DVD3ZBFXENE2JJLEW3BV2IELEQ.JPG)
‘Twas two weeks before Christmas, and Erik Pizer was covered in an imperial milk stout from an afternoon of bottling at the brewhouse.
“But I smell great,” Pizer said with a laugh.
He was bottling a beer called Santa’s Midnight Snack, a collaboration between Tinley Park’s Flipside Brewing and The Open Bottle that hit the taps and shelves at both businesses Saturday.
“It was a fun release day,” said Pizer, owner of Flipside. “Lots of people said they were making sure to visit both of us that day.”
The special release is an imperial milk stout inspired by pecan snowball cookies, released on draft and in bottles with $1 from every 500mL bottle sold being donated to Tinley Wish, a nonprofit that helps families who are facing difficult situations during the holidays.
“We love their mission, which is providing for families in need, locally,” said Patrick Bisch, co-owner of The Open Bottle. “We could donate to a national charity, but seeing those results come to life locally is really important to us. It’s just close to home.”
The collaboration itself is close to home for both entities, as the two businesses are right across the street from one another in Tinley Park — Flipside at 7144 W. 183rd St. and Open Bottle at 7101 W. 183rd St.
“We wanted to do something fun for the holidays to give back and of course have some fun making a holiday beer,” Bisch said.
Bisch and Pizer exchanged “a wild flurry of texts” to brainstorm cookies that could be the inspiration for the collaboration.
“We landed on the little snowball pecan cookie covered in powdered sugar that everyone knows and loves,” Pizer said.
Bisch added, “That has always been one of my favorite holiday cookies since I was a little kid.”
The Open Bottle crew made the hop, skip and a jump across the street to help brew the beer, but Bisch said they largely turned things over to Flipside to execute the idea.
“They definitely do more of the heavy lifting as far as brewing goes,” Bisch said.
Pizer said brewing started with a good base beer: a big imperial milk stout. Then, he added a bunch of pecans, brown sugar and vanilla.
“Next thing you know, it tastes like a cookie,” Pizer said. “I’m really happy with how it turned out.”
Bisch said it is a “nice, sweet milk stout with those cookie flavors.” Though, it is a “cookie” in which Santa best not overindulge if he’s still got sleigh duties, as it has an alcohol by volume of 10%.
Fewer than 300 bottles of the beer were made. As of the evening of Sunday Dec. 17, both the Tinley Park location and Open Bottle’s Lockport location at 16437 W. 159th St. had limited bottles still available.
Daily Southtown
“It’s a great gift,” Bisch said.
On Dec. 16, Flipside also released its first barrel-aged stout, a classic imperial stout aged for a year in a Weller 12 bourbon barrel. Pizer dubbed the creation Decision Fatigue — a nod to all the choices he faced in opening Flipside.
“It is so thick and fudgy and has a hint of vanilla and a ton of awesome barrel character to it,” Pizer said. “I planned on adding some cacao nibs and vanilla to it, but it tasted so good without all of that I left it out.”
While Pizer hopes to do more barrel-aged releases in the future, he made only 120 bottles of Flipside’s first. Roughly 20 bottles remained as of Sunday night.
Following the holidays, The Open Bottle plans to celebrate its 9th anniversary in Tinley Park on Jan. 27, with more details coming soon.
“That’ll be a good, fun celebration,” Bisch said.
Bill Jones is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.